Home News Science Collaborative Research Leads to Increased Catch Quotas for New England Fisheries

Collaborative Research Leads to Increased Catch Quotas for New England Fisheries

Research by James Sulikowski, Ph.D., associate professor of marine sciences at University of New England, and John Mandelman, Ph.D., research scientist at the New England Aquarium, contributed to a recent emergency action by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to revise an existing policy and increase the amount of skate that fishermen can land this year.

NOAA announced
it has increased the amount of skate that fishermen can land this year
from 31 million to 48 million pounds, based on new scientific
information showing an increase in the overall skate population. The
56-percent quota increase becomes effective November 28th, and remains
in effect through the end of the current fishing season, which ends on
April 30, 2012.

At its June meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council
reviewed updated 2008-2010 trawl survey data from the Northeast
Fisheries Science Center, which shows significant improvements in the
overall skate population.

March 31, 2015 -- NOAA has been bearing the cost of all at-sea monitoring in the groundfishing fishery where there is no dockside monitoring, yet the federal government has been looking to pawn off the cost of its monitors onto the working fishermen since the program began — and that is no run-of-the-mill cost.